A Barcelona court sentenced Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi and his father, Jorge Horacio Messi, to 21 months in prison for tax fraud, but they’ll both avoid any jail time. Under Spanish law, sentences of less than two years are suspended and served under probation.
Messi and his father, who denied any wrongdoing during a four-day trial in June, were found guilty of three counts of defrauding the Spanish tax department of $4.6 million. Prosecutors claimed Messi and his father used shell companies in countries such as Belize, Uruguay and Switzerland to avoid taxes on Messi’s earnings from image rights from 2007 to 2009. The court fined Messi and his father a total of 3.5 million euros (approximately $3.9 million).
Messi, who has won four Champions League titles with Barcelona, announced his retirement from the Argentine national team after a penalty shootout loss to Chile in the Copa America finals last month.
